RingCentral Adds Cloud Phone and Platform Capabilities

RingCentral, a provider of enterprise cloud communications, video meetings, collaboration, and contact center solutions, has added to its business cloud phone system and unified business communications platform to help companies automate menial tasks, reduce app switching, and create custom workflows.

"Core to successfully enabling hybrid work is providing your people with the right communications and collaboration tools when and where they need them," said Kira Makagon, chief innovation officer of RingCentral, in a statement. "At RingCentral, we're focused on delivering the best connected experiences across the varying working styles, locations, and technologies to reduce operational inefficiencies and enable people to effortlessly connect with customers, teams, and everyone in between."

The recent updates to RingCentral's platform include the following:

• Salesforce integration enhancements that allow reps to click numbers to send SMS messages and conduct warm transfers;
• Texting in HubSpot: Sales teams can now send and view SMS messages and access both voicemail and fax capabilities within HubSpot. Reps can also confirm and remind people of appointments by sending text straight from HubSpot.
• Personal call forwarding;
• Auto-dialer;
• Line seizure for emergency services;
• The Resource Center tool, which provides users with self-service resources to help them access rich instructional videos, documentation, feature overviews, and help and support;
• RingCentral's line of business analytics now available through APIs as a public beta to gauge performance across call queues, user groups, and individuals;
• Google Drive Add-in: Be notified of new shared Google drive files, view files, and provide file access to team members in RingCentral messaging groups;
• Google Forms Add-in: Instantly view form responses as they come in;.
• HubSpot Add-in: Instantly access contact details; find and share company details; and share contact, deal, and ticket information with colleagues via team messaging;
• Zendesk Add-in: Agents can create and respond to tickets and be notified in real time of new tickets within the RingCentral app;
• TextBot SMS Add-In: Send and receive text messages to any mobile phone using RingCentral's native Team Messaging feature;
• Trello Add-in: Receive notifications for Trello board activity and update Trello with completed tasks, new comments, and much more;
• Poll Add-In: Create polls, allow team members to submit responses within team chat, and instantly see the results in real time; and
• Auto-reply assistant: Send pre-made responses based on keywords or when out of office.

"It's no secret that cloud phone systems enable organizations to scale, enhance their mobility, and offer a cost-effective communications platform," said Jon Arnold, principal of J Arnold and Associates, a technology research and analyst firm, in a statement. "As a leader in the telephony space, the new innovations that RingCentral is announcing today provide users with a complete, secure, and connected phone system. This allows their customers to make a seamless transition to the cloud and offers IT administrators the capabilities they need to make setup and management extremely easy and intuitive."